


we, the nuclear

by Murf1307



Category: X-Men (Comicverse)
Genre: Character Study, Developing Relationship, Fluff, Missing Scene, Multi, Platonic Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-31
Updated: 2019-12-31
Packaged: 2021-02-27 03:21:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22040230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Murf1307/pseuds/Murf1307
Summary: The kids are alright, but when they’ve never been before, it can be hard to believe it’s real.  Meanwhile, there’re some things to be settled between old friends.
Relationships: Idie Okonkwo/Evan Sabahnur, Idie Okonkwo/Quentin Quire/Evan Sabahnur, Jean Grey & Quentin Quire
Kudos: 11





	we, the nuclear

**Author's Note:**

> Wrote this as a little ‘missing scene’ kind of thing to cover how my kids wound up on Krakoa. 
> 
> Title from Emily Palermo’s “Millenials”
> 
> 1st epigraph from ‘The Lord is my shepher, I shall not want’ by @jayrocks on Tumblr.  
> 2nd epigraph by @boykeats on Tumblr.  
> 3rd epigraph is a Jenny Holzer truism.

_This is what is holy:_

  1. _a meeting of bodies_
  2. _a communion of souls_
  3. _your name, like a prayer_



* * *

It isn't long after Nate Grey's power is broken that Krakoa blooms in earnest, the gates opening like flowers.

Idie is among the first to enter one, stepping gently into what part of her still prays is a Promised Land. Her feet land in plush grass, a clearing full of wildflowers opening up in front of her, and she feels tears stinging in her eyes.

It is more than she could have ever dreamed. 

She steps away from the gate and kneels, her hands on the ground. "Thank you so much, Krakoa," she tells it. "Thank you." She knows this isn't the same Krakoa that lived under the Jean Grey School, but in this moment, she loves it just as much.

Flowers grow under her hands, twining up her wrists, and she laughs.

It almost doesn't feel real. 

How could it, after the last four years of her life?

A hand lands on her shoulder. "Making friends?" Logan asks her, and she can hear the smile in his voice before she looks up at him.

"It's as though everything we've ever wanted has come back to us," she says. 

He nods. "Yeah. And shit, for once I believe it."

He squeezes her shoulder and moves away as the flowers curl further up her arms before separating from the ground. She sees him moving toward Jean Grey, whose red hair makes her stand out against the shifting palette of green all around them, and smiles.

Idie stands up, one of the flower-vines sliding up from her arm to wind into her hair, and the other curling into a bracelet around her wrist. She feels over-full of joy and tender warmth, and then her eyes find the gate again.

There's Evan, who looks just as overwhelmed.

She moves toward him, reaching him in moments. She throws her arms around him; as she does, the flower vine on her wrist starts moving toward his head to crown him, too.

"Idie," Evan murmurs, his arms tightening around her waist.

She saw the world with him, but here, now, with flowers in their hair, she knows:

They're finally home.

* * *

_(5 minutes ago)_ **_an angel_ ** _said:_

 _i saw you in a dream and i thought  
_ _you were beautiful, like light falling on pines,  
_ _a warm, hazy-gold, & resurrecting  
_ _kind of beautiful._

* * *

They make a home together, in those first days, working with Krakoa to twine roots and vines together into something warm and gentle, a living structure that grows and blooms like the rest of the island. Later, there will be others living in the Akademos Habitat, but for now, this house is theirs alone.

And when the work is done, Evan takes Idie in his arms and kisses her, for the first time.

It was always going to happen, but it happens on Krakoa because Krakoa still feels like a dream.

Idie cups Evan's face in her hands and kisses him deeper, and he has never wanted anything more than this: to love someone so much his hands shake, and to be safe in doing it.

Nate Grey's nightmare and his own place in it fades away when Idie touches him, and as they fall in bed together, he's never been happier.

Afterward, in what's now _their_ bed, she lays her head on his chest and asks, softly:

"Do you think he'll come home?"

He doesn't have to ask her who she means — _he_ , spoken in that tone of voice, has always been Quentin.

"I don't know," he admits. 

He doesn't know if Quentin knows _how_ to give up the fight that defined their generation. Quentin, in boots and blazers and hair dye, with his mind too big and too fast for his skull, his heart and soul too explosive.

"If he does, though," he promises, Idie's face soft as he strokes her cheek. "We'll make room for him, too."

* * *

_PEOPLE ARE BORING UNLESS THEY ARE EXTREMISTS_

* * *

Quentin is tapped for X-Force, though none of them know that yet, even before he first steps foot on Krakoa.

 _First time anybody's said anything to me,_ he thinks, when Jean Grey slips against his mind one night. _At least, not since you all disappeared. Nobody called me about nation-building, or anything._

He's not bitter, honest.

She laughs, and shows him that, too. _I had a feeling you'd say that._

He doesn't reply, because he recognizes her tone. She sounds like her younger self when she laughs, and he's not sure he likes that fact.

Despite the distance, she tips him a memory:

_The Graveyard at the Jean Grey School, a cool grey statue of the woman she becomes, a boy with caustic eyes and future problems of his own._

He recoils.

 _You shouldn't know that. That was_ **_hers_** _. You were dead, anyway, dead and sanctified like it means anything. Like dying for anything means anything, when we are what we are._

Jean nudges his attention back to the graveyard, and he comes reluctantly, their current consciousnesses meeting on the edges of the memory. 

She's dressed like Marvel Girl, like the first time the Phoenix died for love.

"I'm sorry. I got her memories when they went back to the past." Jean smiles, just a little. "It matters, that we knew you."

_Have we met?_

Another memory, flashing from one of them to the other, Phoenixfire-pure. 

"Fine," he says. "Are you here to drag me to Krakoa?"

She sobers. "No," she says. "I need you to do something for us. For Krakoa."

 _We were stupid and slow and careless_ , the words come, alongside a tide of remembered violence, crescendoing into a cracking gunshot. _The island is on lockdown now._

"Xavier's dead again?"

"Yes. I have to bring him back, so I can't leave, either." She steps toward him. "But you love the idea of Krakoa. What it means for us."

He takes a breath. "You want me to find who did it."

She nods. "Yes. I know you can." She slides him the knowledge of where to begin. "And if you run into Logan," she says, smiling just a little, "try not to antagonize him too much?"

"...Red, you know me," he says, and means it. "Antagonizing Wolverine is pretty much how I spent my whole high school _career_."

Her laugh, surprisingly, is enough to make this all worthwhile.


End file.
